Tag Archives: Jordan

Touring the Capital with TechWomen – Day 1

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Yesterday, a group of between five and ten TechWomen Emerging Leaders from Africa and the Middle East and I toured Washington DC, seeing the Smithsonian (Air & Space, American History, and Natural History) and Washington Monument, and a very big dog.  We had dinner at the excellent Food Corner Kabob House (all halal!) with several other groups of TechWomen out and about. We then walked through a cold wind to the White House and Lincoln Memorial at night. It was inspiring to join in their enthusiasm for this remarkable place!

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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TechWomen in Washington DC

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My TechWomen Emerging Leaders Seham Al Jaafreh (Jordan) and Mai Temraz (Palestine) did a great job on their final presentations to the Everwise teams – live in San Francisco, and calling in from New York and Minneapolis, on Thursday. Yesterday, we traveled to the nation’s capital, and today we start our meetings and tours in Washington D.C.

During our short month together, Mai passed two amateur radio operators exam levels (the first Palestinian woman to do so!), Seham won a big funding award then remotely managed her Mutah Knowledge Station team in Jordan to complete the follow up requirements, and together we created seven videos in Arabic about mentoring for Everwise, to be posted on YouTube.  I am so proud of Mai and Seham!

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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Two TechWomen at Everwise!

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Today Everwise is pleased and honored to host an additional TechWomen Emerging Leader! Mai Temraz (of Palestine) has joined Seham Jaafreh (of Jordan) working at Everwise in San Francisco this month. CEO and Founder Mike Bergelson heard about Mai’s original mentor becoming very ill and immediately offered to host a second TechWomen mentoring program participant.  The women of Everwise have welcomed our two new ladies. Everwise is a small company with a big heart! Seham and Mai are getting settled and starting on their professional projects today.

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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TechWomen Opening Day 2014!

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Yesterday was the TechWomen 2014 opening event for participants from 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East (plus the USA!) – generously hosted by Juniper Networks again in Sunnyvale, California. During the next five weeks, I will be the Professional Mentor for Seham Jaafreh from Jordan – working together at Everwise In San Francisco. Lucy Keoni will also be working with Seham as her Cultural Mentor.

Assistant US Secretary of State Evan Ryan made the welcome announcement that the countries included in TechWomen 2015 will be extended to South Central Asia!

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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TechWomen Potluck

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This afternoon, long-time TechWomen mentor and supporter Shannon McElyea generously hosted a potluck garden party for mentors and STEM Emerging Leaders from the Middle East and Africa. The TechWomen ELs have been in America just a few days – going on tours and discussing their plans in workshops. This was one of their first purely social events – and for many, their first-ever potluck. The American custom of building a meal around whatever food each person wants to contribute took some explaining but we all had a good time.

During this next month, I will be the Professional Mentor for Seham Jaafreh from Jordan – working together at Everwise. Everwise has already posted a blog post welcoming the TechWomen – as has the US State Department. Lucy Keoni will be working with Seham and me as Seham’s Cultural Mentor. The three of us were delighted to meet today and are enjoying planning many activities and visits in the San Francisco Bay Area.

John and I drove four lovely and lively Emerging Leaders from Zimbabwe back to their hotel after the party.

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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Notable Women in Computing Playing Cards – GHC14

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Professor Susan Rodger (Duke University), my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and I are almost done with our Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing (aka GHC14) project “Notable Women in Computing and Wikipedia”. We are collaborating on both a formal GHC14 conference poster plus playing cards featuring 54 notable technical women. This has taken a long time to prepare but they are looking good. The honorees we have worked with have been entirely supportive and excited about this project.

This work is associated with the “CRA-W and Anita Borg Institute Wikipedia Project – Writing Wikipedia Pages for Notable Women in Computing” project that Susan and I have worked on for years.  Jessica has been our creative designer, production staff, and GHC14 project manager.   Duke University and Everwise are project sponsors. Information is not complete on all of the honorees (so there will be some cards featuring just a silhouette) but dozens of the featured women have sent us photos or given us permission to use photos from their professional pages.

Hearts cards shown here:

  • Queen – Frances Allen – IBM Fellow Emerita, Turing Award, Computer History Museum Fellow, IEEE Fellow
  • King – Barbara Liskov – MIT Professor, Turing Award, ACM Fellow, SWE Achievement Award
  • Jack – Shafrira Goldwasser – MIT Professor, Turing Award, ACM-W Athena Lecturer
  • Ace – Hessa Sultan Al Jaber – Qatar ICT Minister, Chair CS Department – Qatar Univ.
  • 10 – Mary Jane Irwin – Pennsylvania State Univ. Professor, ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, NAE Member, ACM-W Athena Lecturer

Because I am mentoring a TechWomen Emerging Leader from Jordan who is arriving just as GHC14 starts, for the first time in ten years I cannot attend the Hopper Conference myself, but Dr. Susan Rodger will present our poster and she will be distributing the decks of cards from the Duke University table. The cards will be marked Creative Commons * and we will provide instructions if folks want to create another deck with different people honored. We expect that this deck will be a First Edition and that there will be corrections and updates as a result of GHC14 discussions, resulting in a Second Edition.

* The Notable Women in Computer Science project is a labor of love for the women behind it, which is why we are licensing the card deck under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 U.S. License. We have done a number of things to ensure this deck only helps, and does not hurt, women in computing. Our efforts included: using public domain images, seeking individual permission for images, seeking to represent the reality of diversity of women in computing, and seeking input on the project from women leaders in technology.

If you have a concern (don’t like the public domain photo we found of you, don’t think the photo you took can be licensed in the way we did, decided you did not want to be included) we want to know and we will do our best to help you. Please contact Katy Dickinson (katy dot dickinson at gmail dot com) with questions.

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Opening Event for TechWomen 2014 Mentors

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I am proud and honored to once again be a TechWomen mentor. Today was the orientation session for the mentors (generously hosted by LinkedIn in Mountain View, California). We meet our Emerging Leaders on 6 October. I am very much looking forward to working with my new mentee from Jordan on a project at Everwise in San Francisco.  She and I have been speaking by Skype for the last few weeks – making plans.  Lucy Keoni will be her Cultural Mentor and I will be her Professional Mentor next month.  Since 2010, I have served with 250 outstanding women mentors from 89 Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area companies in this remarkable and life-changing program.

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About TechWomen:

The mission of TechWomen is to empower, connect, and support the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by providing them access and opportunity to advance their careers, pursue their dreams, and become role models for women and girls in their communities.

During the five-week program, participants engage in project-based mentorships at leading companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, participate in professional development workshops and networking events, and travel to Washington, D.C. for targeted meetings and special events to conclude the program.

Over the past three years, 156 women from Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, the Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tunisia, Yemen, and Zimbabwe have participated in TechWomen.

TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). TechWomen, launched by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011, supports the United States’ global commitment toward advancing the rights and participation of women and girls around the world by enabling them to reach their full potential in the tech industry.

TechWomen is managed by the Center for Women’s Leadership Initiatives (WLI) at the Institute of International Education (IIE).

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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